So Beck and I went down to the Global Release soirée at the Des Peres Apple Store tonight. I didn’t exactly dress in my most geekly for the occasion, but neither did anyone else. I dunno what I was expecting, but part of what I was expecting was probably some folks to be over the top. As it ends up, folks were generally friendly, excited and fascinated with the experience. I’m not sure what the other folks at the mall were thinking though. There were many questions — ya know, once you see a line, it’s just human nature to try to figure out if it’s worth standing in, ’cause if that many folks are standing in line, there must be something good at the end of it, right? 🙂 The folks I felt bad for were the casual shoppers who wanted to visit the Apple Store to pick up something ordinary, not realizing they’d picked a bad day to casually visit the store.

As best as I can figure, we were about 150 folks deep in the line when we strolled up around 5.30 (the event was to begin at 6pm), and by the time the doors opened, there was easily another 50 folks behind us. I suspect there were some folks who camped out through the day, as there were plenty of folks with backpacks, laptops and gear to make their stay more comfortable.

Just minutes before the doors opened, the staff was taking pictures of the very orderly crowd, and the crowd was reciprocating, shooting photos — and some video — of the experience. After a 10-down-to-1 countdown, the doors opened and the crowd was let in a few at a time, with some throttling to ensure there wasn’t too big a throng in the store at any given time. I’d guess that we were inside by 6.15 or 6.30, with the line stretching back at least as far as where we joined it, which would put the crowd at easily 300 folks, and probably more.

Beck and I each got a free T-shirt, although each of them are a little smaller than we’d prefer. I guess the folks that procured the shirts weren’t real familiar with the average shirt size of their die-hard customers!

I’ve gotta say that I was very impressed with playing with Leopard in the store. Visually, it’s just flat amazing, and it seems like there’s plenty of new features to keep folks like me busy for a while. I’m sure it’ll take a while to figure out how best to use these new features, and I’m sure it’ll be fun to play with all the newness….

…once my copy of Leopard arrives. According to FedEx, there’s no new status since it left Memphis around lunchtime. Bummer! 🙁

BTW, there was a really good Diesel Sweeties comic today that flung a barb at the release event tonight. Way funny.